When I was warmed and had my fill of apples and nuts after the soup, Arthémise took me to a room with a very low ceiling and put me to bed, only half undressing me. She left a lighted tallow candle on a board, saying she would soon return to sleep with me.
The sheets were very coarse and of a grey colour. There were spider-webs and spiders that ran along the rafters; but I was not afraid of them like a little friend with whom I played and who screamed when she saw one, even in the garden, on the trees.
In the room there were bars of wood through which the small heads of rabbits popped out and in.
My head burned a great deal; I heard a loud noise in my ears. It seemed to me that the little rabbits looked at me to ask me my history. I knelt down on my bed and said to them:
“My good rabbits, I have a grandmother who doesn’t love me.”
I do not know what the rabbits were going to answer me. I often wondered later, for at that moment I was caught up in my grandfather’s arms, who devoured me with kisses and carried me to the fire on which they had just thrown an enormous bunch of fagots.
Aided by Arthémise, he tried to dress me, but he trembled.
“Bad little girl, your grandmother is nearly wild with grief.”
“I don’t love her any more,” I cried. “I want to stay at Caumenchon, in the room with my friends the rabbits, and not leave my Arthémise.”
The old peasants both said to me with rather a severe air: